As the Grand Junction Sentinel’s Tom Hesse reports–embattled Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who has been in hiding since mid-August as a criminal investigation began into the breach of election system security in her office that resulted in proprietary Dominion Voting Systems data being leaked to far-right conspiracy theorists, made a triumphant (at least for now) return to Grand Junction last night at an event in her honor:
“I’m so happy to be home. This is where my heart is and this is where we’re going to take back America,” Peters told a crowd gathered at Appleton Christian Church.
The event, which was livestreamed on the Stand For The Constitution Grand Junction Facebook Page, was billed as a “Stand With Tina” rally and featured a handful of speakers. It was Peters’ first public appearance in Grand Junction after an investigation into her office was announced in August.
“It’s places like Mesa County that can be the catalyst to take back our country. And we need your help,” Peters told the crowd. “And it starts today.”
That’s pretty close to what Clerk Peters’ benefactor over the last month, “MyPillow Guy” Mike Lindell, said at the beginning of his so-called “Cyber Symposium” last month devoted to exposing once and for all the “absolute proof” that the 2020 elections were stolen from Donald Trump. They’re going to “take back our country” with…revelations of vote fraud…
Here we arrive at the disconnect. Not even Peters’ closest supporters, like Rep. Ron Hanks who was present last night in Grand Junction or Lauren Boebert’s former campaign manager Sherronna Bishop, can substantiate any specific allegation of fraud based on the data that was stolen in Mesa County on Clerk Peters’ watch. They tried. And when they couldn’t find any proof, Bishop marched into the all-GOP Mesa County Board of Commissioners to demand they find it.
Keep this in mind as Clerk Peters publicly confesses to the crime she’s under investigation for:
Peters said after the 2020 election, she received calls and emails from hundreds of residents who believed the election was illegitimate, and she began investigating those claims on their behalf. [Pols emphasis]
Peters and her deputy, Belinda Knisley, are both the subject of local, state and federal investigations into possible criminal violations that involved revealing secure passwords and hard drives to Dominion voting machines with voter fraud conspiracy theorists. As a result, both also have been temporarily prohibited from conducting this fall’s elections and Secretary of State Jena Griswold is taking action to have Peters removed from election duties…
Again, this is Clerk Tina Peters freely admitting at least some involvement in the theft of this data as part of her “investigation” of concerns expressed about the legitimacy of the 2020 elections. The security of the compromised voting machines in question was Peters’ responsibility. The only way this becomes in some way justifiable, and even then not really since there are official channels to investigate non-fantasy problems, would be if there was actually some game-changing proof in the stolen data to substantiate the “Big Lie” as alleged by dead-end supporters of Donald Trump. But as we know now, that doesn’t exist. The only “security risk” that emerged from this breach of security is the one Clerk Peters created.
As surely as the “QAnon Shaman” had to face the music, there’s a day of reckoning coming in Clerk Tina Peters’ case too. All of this nonsense stops cold once this moves to a criminal courtroom. The criminal justice system has a remarkable way of cutting through unfounded bullshit, as hundreds of January 6th insurrectionists are discovering in federal courtrooms as we write this.
Let Clerk Peters explain the plan to “take back America” to a judge.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
BY: notaskinnycook
IN: BREAKING: Matt Gaetz Pulls Out Of AG Nomination
BY: notaskinnycook
IN: BREAKING: Matt Gaetz Pulls Out Of AG Nomination
BY: JohnInDenver
IN: BREAKING: Matt Gaetz Pulls Out Of AG Nomination
BY: 2Jung2Die
IN: BREAKING: Matt Gaetz Pulls Out Of AG Nomination
BY: DavidThi808
IN: Thursday Open Thread
BY: itlduso
IN: BREAKING: Matt Gaetz Pulls Out Of AG Nomination
BY: JohnInDenver
IN: BREAKING: Matt Gaetz Pulls Out Of AG Nomination
BY: JohnInDenver
IN: Thursday Open Thread
BY: JohnInDenver
IN: Thursday Open Thread
BY: Ben Folds5
IN: BREAKING: Matt Gaetz Pulls Out Of AG Nomination
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay in the loop with regular updates!
I suggest that rather than explain anything in court, Peters should exercise her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.
I for one am really getting tired of this ‘take back America’ meme that she used. Ugh. It’s code for ‘We’re not real Americans who believe in a partnership Democracy and the need to work together to resolve the issues of the day. We’re just scum who like to cheat the taxpayer.’
The term implies that some group or groups took America from them in the first place. Now who could that be ?
libs…
. . . and brown folks, teh gayz, men in dresses, women in Carhartts, Mooselimbs, Bill Gates, anyone not packing heat, scientists, . . .
. . . tree huggers, Chinese-virus weaponizers, Prius drivers, teachers, jews with space lasers, helmeted motorcycle riders, people who recycle, historians, vegetarians and vegans, . . .
. . . folks with solar panels on their homes, mask wearers, vaccination site workers, union members, seat belt wearers, public bicycle riders, designated drivers, designated hitters . . .
. . .
Well done Dio, well done !
Diogenesdemar's slam poetry
put a drum mix behind it to provide a solid rhythm … then, I think people could dance to it.
You would probably get a different answer if you asked the descendants of the indigenous inhabitants.
You certainly would Gilpin Guy, but the angry MAGA mob is only interested in the fairytale version of American history. It’s not about the truth and never has been.
It reminds me of reading ” the Rape of Nanking ” by Iris Chang way back when I lived in Japan and having a Japanese friend ask me about it because he never had heard of it due to Japanese WWII atrocities being completely omitted from school history lessons and textbooks. ” Oh no, we didn’t do that ! ” OK.
The radical right only wants to teach American children the most favorable, complimentary, or downright false parts of American history, which breeds a kind of ignorance that we don’t need. We need critical thinkers.
Are you saying the one constant through all the years, Ray, has not been baseball?
Sadly, the Chair of the Mesa County GOP was standing right next to her in front of the lecturn in a church. The whole local party has gone rogue.
Honestly, CK, it isn't all that surprising. This is the land of the GOP's nagging right wingers. The Lindell connection is key.
During her hiatus, the narrative we are about to hear and the choreography we shall soon see was written at the top, with promising political careers and subsequent fundraising numbers a focus.
Bannon, Junior, Rudy..Rudy..Rudy, Miller, et al. As always, I am interested in the role played by our former University overlord, in whatever designs are expressed by the local GQP.
Is he fer' em, or agin'em?
Duke, I've seen and heard nothing about Foster and the crazies. I suspect he has no use for them because he's far smarter than they are. I do know he's working awfully hard on getting a school bond passed to replace the Grand Junction High School building, which sorely needed replacing a good 30 years ago.
That is a worthy goal.
If anyone around here can raise money, it would be the big bull, hisself. 🤑
Gertie – I assume they’ll be tapping the state grant funds through BEST for the new school? (btw, thank you Andrew Romanoff)
As Jamelle Bouie writes in his op-ed in today’s NYT, there is no “debunking.”
All this election fraud nonsense is not a matter of facts vs. fevered imaginations and fictions.
This crapheaded nonsense is a policy statement of crapheaded ideology, a description of how crapheaded Republicans believe the world works.
. . . You’d have an easier time convincing these nutters that the three wisemen didn’t ride rolling-coal hypersonic Tyrannosaurs, which Noah had stashed on his hovercraft Ark, to bring gifts of drones, munitions and automatic weapons that Moses had backpacked for forty years across the parted Red Sea, to the baby General jebus sleeping on a MyPillow after having lunched on ShootersGrille sliders.
…who, as my Cat points out, would be alive today, if he had been packing heat.
🙂
https://www.facebook.com/konola4colo/photos/a.491903154250608/4487087794732104/
That is a link to a screen shot I posted to my public FB page. Conversation with Mesa County Republicans about this post. Odds are it was written by Kevin McCarney, since they say they spoke at the Tina Love Fest.
Does anyone seriously believe there is a chance Peters or Knisley could be convicted of anything? Is there even a chance either of them could do jail time for anything?
Probably a better chance that Dominion will win a civil lawsuit against them for bankrupting damages.
You cannot bankrupt out a judgment for a tort which is willful and malicious. And the MAGAt folks are nothing if not willful and malicious.
It is, indeed, hard to imagine.
Hold on to your hats, everyone…the circus is coming to town.!
“Does anyone seriously believe there is a chance Peters or Knisley could be convicted of anything? Is there even a chance either of them could do jail time for anything?”
True, not in Mesa County. They would acquit a ham sandwich if it had a MAGA hat on it.
Is there anyway the AG can bring this case in Denver? Inquiring minds want to know…..
Shutting down security, accessing the devices, taking in an unauthorized person who illegally possessed the intellectual property … yeah, I think there are chances of conviction. False use of credentials for the Deputy.
Assuming there can be a jury selected which does not include an activist who does a one-person nullification of the process, I'd say there's a chance of conviction.
Not guilty verdicts are so rare in Mesa County that any such happening ignites joy and parties in all of the defense bar.
Cops never lie in Mesa County. It's an article of faith. Except, of course, in the aforementioned defense bar.
Stay the course, Clerk Peters. Some day you will get out on parole.
Guess my timing is a bit off. I'll be in GJ tomorrow night. But the "really hot action" was Thursday night.